Death of William Anders - Apollo 8 Astronaut

[LKB]

Thank you!

Thank you for those details, but that still doesn't give a clear picture. Was he maneuvering to land? Was he in the traffic pattern of an airport (not sure exactly where this occurred). Why was he at low altitude over the water?

Low altitude loss-of-control accidents are usually the result of a stall/spin. They usually happen in the traffic pattern.

I'm sure the NTSB is investigating and we'll likely know more when they release their report.

There is at least one video of the incident, but I haven't seen it as yet. If I remember I'll try to search it out.

[relm1]

Thank you!

Thank you for those details, but that still doesn't give a clear picture. Was he maneuvering to land? Was he in the traffic pattern of an airport (not sure exactly where this occurred). Why was he at low altitude over the water?

Low altitude loss-of-control accidents are usually the result of a stall/spin. They usually happen in the traffic pattern.

I'm sure the NTSB is investigating and we'll likely know more when they release their report.

He was performing a loop at low altitude and crashed in the water at the bottom of the loop.  Had he been just 10 feet higher, he might have survived.  In a loop, you experience between 3.3 and 4.5 g's so you can imagine he's done this millions of times but the margin of error is extremely small and at 90 years old, perhaps he experienced a minor black out or something but I wish he was just a few feet higher. 

[LKB]

I've seen a video, possibly the same one. It only shows the last eleven seconds of the flight, so I wouldn't call it conclusive, but at the very beginning it looks like Anders was just finishing a roll or some other maneuver before the plane goes into its dive.

I don't think this dive was intentional, I think something happened during the previous maneuver. Hopefully the NTSB will have enough info along with the medical report to put together a scenario, but these things can take a while, frequently months before a final report is issued.

[krummholz]

Does anyone have a link to the video?

[krummholz]

He was performing a loop at low altitude and crashed in the water at the bottom of the loop.  Had he been just 10 feet higher, he might have survived.  In a loop, you experience between 3.3 and 4.5 g's so you can imagine he's done this millions of times but the margin of error is extremely small and at 90 years old, perhaps he experienced a minor black out or something but I wish he was just a few feet higher. 

That's an airshow maneuver though - a loop at low altitude is, as you indicate, extremely risky. Was Anders an airshow pilot? Otherwise it would be a bizarre thing to attempt, and a case of very poor judgment.

[relm1]

Does anyone have a link to the video?

[LKB]

That's an airshow maneuver though - a loop at low altitude is, as you indicate, extremely risky. Was Anders an airshow pilot? Otherwise it would be a bizarre thing to attempt, and a case of very poor judgment.

Anders had over 8000 hours in a variety of aircraft. A loop is one of the most basic aerobatic maneuvers, and as a military pilot he would have had training in such.

I think something happened just before the point in his flight where the video begins. A medical crisis, a problem with the airplane, maybe even both.

We'll find out eventually, and the old cliche about old military pilots wanting to go out flying is true in any case. Hopefully his family understands, and can take some comfort.

[krummholz]

It's not even clear to me that this was an intentional loop. It looks like a stall/spin - which he would have been trying to pull out of just as his plane disappeared from view, but lacked the altitude to successfully complete the maneuver. I was asking if Anders had experience doing loops specifically at low altitude - I'm sure that as a military pilot, he would have executed many kinds of aerobatic maneuvers in training... but not, I would think, at low altitude.

I agree, something must have happened just before the video began. Maybe he was practicing basic maneuevers and had enough altitude to recover from a stall, but inadvertently got into a spin. Or maybe he intentionally spun the plane from a higher altitude but still couldn't recover for some reason.

Hopefully the NTSB can figure out what happened.

[krummholz]

Last night I saw a more detailed video of the crash linked to from a web board for private pilots - you can see him rolling just before beginning his dive. He might have been rolling inverted to perform a Split S, which involves a dive from an inverted starting point and then pulling out of it in normal orientation. It's a common aerobatic maneuver that a fighter pilot would have been trained in. It's hard to judge his initial altitude from the video, but given how quickly he reached the water, I can't imagine he was high enough to safely complete the maneuver. Then again, I'm not trained in aerobatics so I don't know how much altitude is normally lost during a Split S.